


The Weight of the World

by bellinaball



Series: Weight [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Torture, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-05
Updated: 2011-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-17 15:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellinaball/pseuds/bellinaball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine's parents have given him a present. No matter what Kurt tells him, Blaine knows that his gift isn't a person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight of the World

**Author's Note:**

> This arose out of a prompt over at the Glee Kink Meme a few months back. It ran away with me and took up two LJ posts on the account I created to hold this 'verse. Because AO3 has (much!) longer character limits, I thought I would also post it here so it can be read all on one page.
> 
> There is also a sequel in progress that will be posted here as well. But for an indication of how long that's gotten... it won't fit even inside the AO3 limits. So that will be posted in chapters, although they will probably be longer than how I split them up over on Livejournal.
> 
> I can say I never expected to write wingfic, nor to develop a detailed fantasy AU for Glee of all shows, but, well... inspiration! It just happens, apparently! And fair warning for people who primarily read for ships: the prompt asked for Kurt and Blaine interactions, but they were specified as being very cruel. Because of that setup, this is not really a Klaine fic and (outside of flashbacks) he plays no role at all in the sequel. This is more like gen that happens to involve some sex.

There were underground websites for families suffering through the same tragedy as the Hummels. The strategies proposed were designed to minimize suffering, but they wound up being simply ineffective. Burt Hummel had done his research. The development had taken him by surprise—no parent wanted to think about this kind of thing—and he found himself rudderless in his panic. Even so, he read through those posts with a sinking feeling at each new thread opened.

 _I tied strings around the bases to cut off the blood flow, like a tourniquet._ The post had been made on May 5th. Everyone was excited about the idea and thought it sounded like a fantastic way to cope. By May 9th, that same poster bluntly told everyone that it didn't help, they just grew through the strings. They'd tried plastic ties, everything. Nothing worked.

 _I had my daughter make sure to always sleep on her back... it can't hurt, right?_ Hadn't helped.

 _I broke the bones._ Parents swarmed that person, telling her what a monster she was, but she raged right back. They all knew what the outcome was if they couldn't find a way to fix their children. She would try anything. Anything. But even that hadn't worked.

That last strategy had been the closest thing to practical he'd seen there, and everyone had told that frantic mother that she didn't deserve her child. Burt wasn't going to say a word about his plan. Only Kurt knew and he'd accepted its inevitability.

Or he had, before he was propped over a bench in his father's garage, bare-chested and facing the ground. The moment was far more real than it had been when they were having their discussion safely at home. "Dad," he gulped, slender body heaving out his fear. "I don't want to do this."

Burt's jaw tightened. He knew.

Above his son's back grew two white wings. They were small, still; perhaps the size of a goose's. Two days earlier, when they'd made their plan, they were still easily hidden. No larger than a dove's.

"A nightingale's," Kurt had tried to joke, but it collapsed into sobbing.

Both had thought they were in the clear. No one knew why the wings appeared but they stole the bearer's humanity with them. Oh, they would look the same as ever, simply with an indescribably beautiful addition between their shoulder blades. It was that beauty that was the problem. Those people were rare and beautiful, and like anything else rare and beautiful they were objects of desire.

People with money made the rules. They made the laws. If they wanted to possess these strange, rare people, then something needed to change. You couldn't own a person, after all... but you could own an animal. 'Angels,' they called them, like it was something respected. But they were animals in how they were treated: owned, collared like pets.

The wings, if they came, usually appeared at puberty. Like Kurt's voice had never changed, and like his growth spurts came late, so did two points of pain on his back that made Burt's heart seize in fear when Kurt asked his father to look. They'd made it through safely, both had thought. And then, between one day and the next, they hadn't.

"Bite down on that stick I gave you, Kurt," Burt softly said. "This is going to hurt."

Tears splattered the floor, but Kurt shakily retrieved the sawed-off chunk of a broom handle they'd wrapped in leather and placed it between his teeth. His hands curled around the back of the bench and clung to it, muscles already shaky.

Feeling like the worst son of a bitch in the world for what he was about to do, Burt lifted his circular saw, turned it on, and waited for Kurt's first huge flinch to ease. If he cut those damn things off then everything would be fine. No one knew yet, and they'd keep it that way. One day Kurt might have to explain to someone he loved why he had those two strange scars on his back, but he'd do so as a man. Not as an animal. All Burt had to do was slice those damned things off and then he'd have his son back, whole and unchanged.

Unchanged, Burt kept telling himself as he took a step forward. The saw screamed. It'd be like nothing had ever, ever happened.

When metal bit through flesh, Kurt screamed louder than the saw. Blood flowed down the curve of his sides.

There was no red to be seen. His blood glowed golden and vanished into nothing when it hit the ground.

Burt's stomach clenched again at that, but he forced himself to work quickly and smoothly. One wing fell to the ground, then the other. Kurt sobbed below him, in even more agony than they'd expected, and Burt wanted to turn that saw on his own throat for the pain he'd put his boy through. But there was more to come, yet, and with a fresh heaping of guilt Burt grabbed the metal he'd heated to a white tip. The stick fell out of Kurt's mouth as his wounds were cauterized, his body limp and unprotesting.

"It's over," Burt promised him as he grabbed those (perfect, unbloodied) wings and threw them in a metal barrel. A fire was already going within it and their feathers alit in an instant. The garage's typical scents of grease and sweat were overlaid with beautiful florals; Burt tried not to think about it. "It's over," he said again as he knelt next to his collapsed, weeping son. "I'm sorry."

"It hurt," Kurt managed.

Burt moved to rub small circles on the base of his back, but froze when he looked. The ugly black scars of the cauterized flesh were shimmering between their cracks. Gold spilled out of them and the flesh knit together and healed. But that new skin was flat, pale and unbroken, and so for those moments Burt allowed himself to hope.

"Get in the car, Kurt," he quietly told him after placing a kiss on his son's forehead. "I'll put out the fire and then we'll go home."

He let his son sleep with him that night like he hadn't since his age was in single digits. Wings were on Kurt's back when they woke, white and glorious and already half his height.

Kurt, shaking, asked him what they were going to do.

Burt didn't have an answer.

  


* * *

 

Blaine wasn't particularly excited about his seventeenth birthday. For his sixteenth he'd been given a car. For his eighteenth he knew he'd be handed a tuition check to whatever university he wished to attend. Sixteen and eighteen were major birthdays. Seventeen was a shrug between them. Breathing room.

Some of his classmates got fabulous birthdays every year, but Blaine felt distinctly lacking in comparison. A house with only five bedrooms, trips to Vail instead of St. Moritz... a sweet sixteen that rented out an event hall and live band in Columbus was _nothing_ compared to Walter Hanthrop's grand string of parties in London, Paris, and Munich.

He loved his family, but he wasn't expecting anything special, not with the bar set by his classmates. He knew his Lexus only cost around sixty thousand dollars, maybe seventy. Walter was ferried around in a Maybach.

So, when he was handed one last present after he'd opened an endless string of cashmere sweaters and electronic gadgets, Blaine had no clue what it might be. "What is this?" he asked curiously as he turned the flat box around. It seemed like it was sized for an iPod, but he'd already opened the three he'd asked for. (One for his car, one for working out, and one for his bedroom.)

"Open it, darling," his mother said, sounding incredibly excited.

What could possibly drive so much anticipation, he wondered as he slid one finger under the folds of the paper. It fell easily apart but Blaine couldn't comprehend what he was seeing when the box revealed itself.

"Do you like it?" she asked hopefully.

"This is... this is impossible," he managed as he turned the box over. It was the controller for an Angel. They were never sold as individual units, even as a joke or a prop. A controller was invariably paired with a collar, and a collar was fitted around an Angel's neck. "I don't understand," he said as he looked up, and he truly didn't.

Angels were desperately rare. They'd started appearing only a few decades earlier. Those first ones still looked youthful; something about their blood kept them in their prime. No one knew if they would live forever, stay beautiful until the day they dropped dead from old age, or simply glimmer away into nothingness. But even with the inventory not declining, demand far outstripped supply. Angels belonged to billionaires. Even Walter's family couldn't have afforded one. Families in ten thousand square foot mansions over Park Avenue owned Angels, and most of them were still out of luck when a hundred buyers all tried to slap down the million-dollar deposit whenever one went on the market.

"I have the right contacts," his father said. Blaine barely heard him. He felt almost dizzy. "Normally they're found at eleven, twelve, thirteen... they'd be trained by now. This isn't a _good_ Angel," he said apologetically. "It got its wings very late, no one knows why, and so the buyers were worried about selling... damaged goods." He grimaced, likely thinking Blaine would think his gift was being diminished, but Blaine didn't care. "It's not trained at all, it wasn't even collared a month ago, but, well...."

That way, they'd even been given a chance to buy without a hundred voices shouting down their bid. That way, they even had a chance at affording it. Blaine wondered how they'd found the money even for a bad Angel; it had to be a second mortgage on the house. Maybe they'd sold their vacation home.

"We knew we had to when we had the chance," his mother said kindly. "This was too big an opportunity to pass up. If it hadn't been right from the area, we never would have heard before it went off to the trainers and market. Happy birthday, sweetheart." She smiled in excitement. "Do you want to see it?"

"Yes," Blaine said in wonder, staring at the controller in his hand. He would have to train his Angel with the pleasure they inherently felt versus the pain of its collar. What a grand adventure it would be. Like he was undressing a lover, Blaine pulled off the plastic sheeting covering a scanner. It read his thumbprint and acknowledged him as that collar's owner.

"It's in your room," his father grinned. "Go take a look."

Nearly bouncing in his excitement, Blaine hugged them both, thanked them from the bottom of his heart, and then took the stairs at a run.

When he pushed open the heavy door to his room, Blaine's breath caught in his throat. It was by the window. Light poured through, picking out its soft features and the edges of countless pristine feathers. It looked like a boy, though not a strong one. The moment was suddenly overwhelming, like when Blaine had stood in front of his first Raphael and wondered why he was trapped in a world full of harsh photography when there had once existed that pale, gentle beauty. His feet didn't want to move.

His Angel turned at the sound of Blaine's entry. The sun picked out coppery highlights in its hair when it moved and its eyes were the color of a lake in spring. Blaine felt awkward in comparison, dull and broad and heavy, and he didn't dare move any closer.

"I guess I was bought for you," it said in a choirboy's voice. A thin golden collar ringed its neck. It shimmered like his hair in the light.

"Yes," Blaine said through a dry throat. "What's your name?" Angels had musical names, Latin or Italian or French. Their identities were songs.

"Kurt."

That wouldn't do at all. He'd have to choose a better one, one more suited to this ethereal creature that had burst into his life.

Angels were sold as pieces of art, but also as objects of desire. Blaine hadn't simply been given something to look at but the modern equivalent of some well-bred courtesan. It was the Angel who naturally reached inhuman levels of pleasure, not the owner, but they were trained to be compliant and demonstrative. The owners' heightened pleasure came from control over such a thing of beauty.

He could have that pleasure that very instant. Kurt would remove its clothing if asked, revealing the rest of its pale form that had abandoned its Renaissance painting, and Blaine could take it to his bed.

Nerves swept him and he couldn't yet bring himself to do so. It was all too overwhelming. He'd be handling a painting with dirty hands. "Stand there," he told Kurt, walking to his bed and folding his legs under him. "Stand by the window. I just want to look at you."

This was the most amazing day of his life, Blaine thought with wonder as the sun moved slowly across his Angel.

It was beautiful.

  


* * *

 

"Holy shit," was all David could manage when Blaine let them through the doors. As soon as they entered Blaine restarted the security system; anyone who even touched the walls on the ground floor would trigger it. His parents had decided not to take chances.

"You weren't kidding?" Wes gasped. "You _weren't kidding!_ "

Blaine preened as his friends marvelled over the miraculous thing in front of them. It was his, the best bragging rights anyone could have, and no one could take it away from him. "I'll have to see if the administrators will let me bring it to my dorm room," he said, thinking ahead to the end of summer break. "And if not," Blaine chortled, "perhaps I'll change schools."

They nodded, not even trying to argue that he should stay at Dalton. It was far less important than an Angel. Had Blaine said he planned to drop out of school entirely and spend his days in bed with his Angel spread compliantly under him, no one would have blinked.

"Go upstairs and wait in my room," Blaine told Kurt and smiled when it went. He had hoped that it would be well behaved around his friends. "Let's get some drinks and then we can go catch up. I've missed our discussions; you have to _plan_ them during the summer like you never had to on campus."

"I'm trying to find its new name," Blaine eventually told his friends as they lounged in his room. "I don't like the one it came with."

"He."

Like the same puppeteer controlled their heads, all of the boys looked to the source of that voice. "Did it just _talk?_ " marvelled David. "Do they all sound like that?"

Kurt stood where Blaine had chosen for it upon arriving in the room. Positioned in the corner like that it should have come across as a bit of the room's décor, but it was instead as if it'd picked that spot on its own. "I'm a he," it repeated. "Not an it. I have a name. I don't need a new one. I'm Kurt Hummel."

Blaine felt his cheeks rush hot and red when his friends started laughing, but then a new topic rose and they were talking about their plans for classes next year. He should have corrected his pet with its collar, he thought with shame. He wasn't a very good owner.

But the moment had passed, and for the rest of the day Kurt stood there obediently silent. It was, except for that outburst, perfectly well behaved. "I have to train you," Blaine informed it when his friends had left. "You can't be used properly until you're trained, and I want to get on with it."

A great crushing _sadness_ washed through Kurt's eyes; no one and nothing should be able to emote so deeply. It took a deep breath and was fine in the next moment, but Blaine's resolve faltered from where he'd gathered it. He'd be kind. He'd let it choose. "I'll call you he," he offered, "or I'll let you keep your name. Pick which one you'd like."

Kurt started. "What?"

"It's typical to change an Angel's name," Blaine said, "and of course everyone calls you 'it.' But you were very good today... generally speaking. When you're good I'll reward you. So, which reward would you like?"

"You expect me to either give up my identity or my humanity," Kurt choked out.

Blaine's brow furrowed. "You don't have either," he said in perfectly reasonable tones, but Kurt had that same look of agony return regardless.

"Fine," Kurt eventually whispered when Blaine didn't offer both. "I'm a person."

Clearly Kurt wasn't, but Blaine would go along with the charade if it made his pet happier. "Of course you are, Jophiel," he said soothingly. His Angel flinched at the name; Blaine realized it would take him a long while yet to stop thinking of it—him—as Kurt, but it would be training for both of them. "Do you like it?" he asked, though of course he didn't care. "It's the traditional name for the Christian angel of beauty. It's a compliment," he added.

Kurt shook where he stood but reined himself visibly and managed to say, "Of course. Thank you. It's a wonderful name." It was amazing how every word could come out sounding like such an attack.

"You're welcome," Blaine said. "Take off your clothes." With that sexual element involved Kurt's earlier strength faltered. He didn't move, but that decision seemed to lack any statement or purpose. "Jophiel," Blaine said sharply, thumbing his controller. "You do as I say. Remove your clothes; I want to see you."

"I'm a virgin," Kurt whispered, but when Blaine's eyes lit up he seemed to realize he'd made a mistake.

A _virgin._ A virgin Angel. If those sellers had realized what they could have made off that, his parents never would have been able to afford him. He still couldn’t believe his good luck that it had happened at all. It was a one in a billion thing, truly.

Angels were put through training from the time hunters caught them. When they were young it was all about subservience. Their faces kept aging until they looked anywhere from sixteen to twenty, and it was when they approached those years that their training moved into the sexual realm. This one had missed out on all of that. He would argue and misbehave... but not a single person had ever _had_ him.

Blaine was abruptly and fully hard, so much so that it hurt. "Take them off, Jophiel."

Clearly he didn't want to. He looked almost scared, but fought it back with a visible effort. Kurt's fists balled, he took a deep breath, and in that voice of his he gritted out with fresh stubbornness, "My name is Kurt."

Jaw clenched, Blaine brought up the controller and pushed randomly on its buttons. Kurt gasped in pain and clutched not at his collar but at his stomach. He doubled over as if run through with a sword and eventually dropped to the ground from the agony. His collar beeped placidly as it stimulated those nerves with impulses deep in his spinal column. "Stop!" he pleaded. Curling into a fetal position, his wings naturally curled around him like a shield and soon Blaine couldn't see anything else of his pet.

They were beautiful wings, Blaine thought proudly. He released the button and heard Kurt's gasped sigh of relief, then followed that with a long, gentle stroke of the feathers in front of him. Kurt gasped again, but in pleasure that he likely hated to feel.

Their wings were very sensitive. It was a primary selling point.

"Are you going to disobey my orders again?" Blaine asked in what he thought were terribly polite tones. He thought back to hearing Walter complain about how _difficult_ it was to train 'the help.' His own family had a maid come once a week, not anything like that family's staff, and so he'd never understood the complaint. But he did remember Walter saying that kindness was key. An employer should be kind but firm and make sure his orders were understood. Blaine assumed that advice applied to owners, as well.

"No," Kurt whispered. "Please don't do that again."

Blaine looked more carefully at the controller and grimaced. He had chosen the torso as he'd thought, but he'd accidentally used its maximum setting. He probably really _had_ felt like he was being disembowelled; future training would use a much lighter hand. "Don't make me and I won't. Take off your clothes, Jophiel."

With trembling hands, Kurt did. His shirt was made with snaps across the back and with the sound of each one releasing he looked just that much more ill.

Blaine frowned. His Angel was supposed to be beautiful. Beautiful things shouldn't frown. "Smile."

Kurt tried, but it was sickly and false.

"Smile," Blaine repeated and laid his hand on one of those wings. They were enormous, the joint in each rising above Kurt's head, and the bases were incredibly powerful under their downy surface. With a slow, deliberate motion he closed his hand around that base, though his fingers couldn't quite meet around it, and stroked once.

Pleasure surged visibly through Kurt. His mouth dropped open and he shuddered through his moans. When Blaine's fingers stroked upward, toward the joint, he rose on his toes to follow. They were _very_ sensitive, Blaine thought happily. He'd barely have to work at all to make his Angel arch beautifully under him. "Take off your clothes, Jophiel," Blaine said, and because he followed it with a long, hard stroke Kurt didn't protest. Lost in the pleasure for as long as it lasted, he reached around to release the final snaps around his wings with one swift motion and didn't seem to realize what he'd done until Blaine's hand left him.

Blaine looked down his body and gasped softly in wonder. Kurt was hard.

His own erection began to leak precome at the sight, and it took everything he had not to stick his hand past his waistband and finish himself off right then. But he was training and he had to carry through this order. "Take off your clothes," he repeated, curling his fingers through the feathers until his short fingernails were lightly scratching the warm skin below. Kurt almost whined at the sensation and seemed to move before he knew was he was doing.

In that haze he pulled away his shirt—his torso was slender and lean if largely undeveloped, all creamy pale except for two pink points—and slid off his pants. He kept arching into Blaine's touch and seemed willing to do anything for more. His erection was sized to fit him, not short but slender, and it fit neatly into Blaine's hand when he clasped his pet.

"I want to see you," he said as he kept stroking and touching. Kurt bucked forward into Blaine's grasp. His hands stole around Blaine's shoulders and clutched desperately. Pleasure was overloading him: his cheeks were flushed, his eyes half-lidded, his mouth parted. He leaned against Blaine when his knees went weak. "I want to see your face when you come," Blaine said.

Kurt shook his head; Blaine didn't know why. He was clearly enjoying himself. His hips bucked into Blaine's hand in perfect rhythm. Soft gasps that might have been grunts from some common man but sounded musical in his voice echoed with each movement. Hands splaying across Blaine's back and then curling into fists around the fabric of his shirt, Kurt let out one high, perfect plea and spilled hotly into Blaine's palm.

When Blaine stepped away, marvelling at the proof of their moment, Kurt seemed to come back to himself. His eyes had been filled with nothing but pleasure so long as Blaine touched him. Now, awareness returned.

He was shaking.

"Did you like that?" Blaine asked. His hand curled under Kurt's chin and rubbed softly, affectionately, like he was petting a cat.

Kurt didn't say anything. His eyes were wet. He looked humiliated, which was all wrong.

"Tell me you liked that, Jophiel," Blaine said more sharply.

A pale hand crept up to brush against a golden collar. "Yes," Kurt said thickly as his fingertips rested on the metal. "I liked it very much."

Blaine's hand moved up to brush Kurt's cheek. He rested it there until Kurt took the cue and rubbed against it. "Good," he said with the utmost affection.

  


* * *

 

Soon Blaine decided to throw a proper party to show off his Angel. When he invited Walter Hanthrop he made sure to do so late, so his invitation would only arrive on the day of the event.

Kurt barely ate, but Blaine had come to realize that was normal for him. On the rare moments when he was hungry he ate natural and healthy things: slices of apple, grapes, breads full of seeds. For a treat he would sometimes get honey but Blaine insisted that he use his finger. He enjoyed the sight of Kurt sucking it clean. Once he'd offered Kurt a single lamb chop and he was almost ill from the smell. He'd said he didn't know why things were different but he couldn't eat flesh any more, not like he had 'before.'

It didn't make sense; there was no 'before.' Wings took a while to appear but he'd been destined for a collar since birth.

Fruit and honey wouldn't impress his friends. Blaine had scheduled a catering menu with appetizers of beef carpaccio and tuna flown in from coastal markets. "Don't get sick," he ordered Kurt as the Angel looked shakily at the spread of food. The caterers glanced over their shoulders at him as they worked, as much as they tried to hide it. Blaine let them.

"If I do, it's because I can't help it," Kurt muttered. "I can't help a lot of things; it doesn't mean I plan on doing them."

Blaine looked thinly at Kurt. "Do you think it's wise to talk back when I've given you an order? You've been doing marvellously on your training. Why hurt your progress?"

Kurt glared at the slivers of beef rather than Blaine. At least he had the sense to direct his anger. "You're right. Of course. You're always right."

"Then why," Blaine asked, "do you like to make it sound like I'm wrong?" The last time Blaine had shown people his Angel, Kurt had been selfish enough to embarrass Blaine with arguing for his birth name. This was far more formal an event and he wanted his prize to be perfectly behaved. "Why do you fight?"

"I know I have no choice," Kurt bit off. "I grew up knowing what happens in this world. But it doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Yes it does," Blaine said.

He hadn't yet mounted Kurt nor taken the Angel within him. He was so perfect that Blaine wanted their first time to be flawless as well, but that had only resulted in endless sessions of touching and orgasms that turned immediately from pleasure to shame. It was time to stop putting things off.

It was time for a party.

"Oh, the food looks wonderful!" his father said as he walked in. "Here, try this," he encouraged Kurt, holding a piece of beef in front of him. "You can have a little treat."

Kurt, visibly ill, took a step back.

"Blaine," his father complained, "you're not doing a very good job training it."

"He doesn't like meat dishes, Dad," Blaine explained. When his father, chuckling, replied that his old pet dog probably would have preferred sirloin tips instead of bagged food but knew to eat what the owners offered, Blaine replied more shortly, "Put it down, it nauseates him."

"He, him?" he repeated pointedly, but let it slide when Blaine glowered. "All right, all right, we're clearing out. Have fun at your party."

"You're welcome," Blaine said pointedly to Kurt.

He knew those late wings were the only way he could get an Angel. Still, sometimes he envied those owners who received well-trained adoration rather than disgust. Years of training aside, a personality had far more time to crystallize by nearly seventeen than by eleven. It was going to take a lot of work to make him forget he'd ever been Kurt.

The doorbell rang. Blaine grinned. "They're here," he said unnecessarily and went to meet his fans.

The party was officially held in the living and dining rooms, but Blaine told Kurt to stand on the stairs in the front hall. Everyone gathered to stare. "I'm so happy," Blaine said, sighing. "I know this is everyone's dream." He made sure to stare straight at Walter as he said it. Walter, with his trust fund but who would never, ever have his own Angel.

"It's drooping," Walter said pointedly.

Blaine looked to the side and saw that Kurt's shoulders were indeed sagging. His head was bowed. He looked miserable. Unacceptable. "Everything you've heard about them is true," Blaine almost purred as his hand stole into feathers to stroke. Kurt shuddered and straightened. "They're never happier than when they're... with their owner."

Some laughed just above a whisper at the visible confirmation.

Kurt looked ready to cry whenever Blaine stopped stroking him. God, he _always_ seemed ready to cry over arousal; didn't he know his own purpose?

"Jophiel loves it," Blaine crooned as he resumed his firm strokes. Everyone leaned just a bit forward, captivated. "David," Blaine said, drawing back his hand. He had a point to make. "Why don't you give it a try?"

His friend boggled at him, clearly unable to believe his luck, and had to be encouraged to walk up those few stairs. Blaine met Walter's eyes and bobbed one eyebrow in defiance. No, his face clearly said. _You_ will never get to do this. "Just touch him, David," Blaine encouraged. "He loved being touched... as you can all clearly see."

Everyone laughed obligingly.

But when David reached up to stroke those huge, beautiful wings, Blaine clicked on the controller he'd hidden behind his back. A sharp jolt of pain seared across Kurt's arm, making him cry out, and David drew back his hand.

"Try again," Blaine suggested. "Maybe you didn't do it right."

"You said just to touch him," David pointed out. More cautiously, he tried again.

This time the pain was in Kurt's leg. He yelped and David pulled back entirely.

"I think," Blaine said conspiratorially, "that our dear friend David has shown everyone that this delicate operation should best be left to those trained in it." When his hand scratched Kurt's wings he left the controller alone. Kurt's cries of pain were gone and only soft pleased moans remained.

"All of you are in for a treat later," Blaine said when he pulled his hand back and Kurt's eyes refocused. He'd been on the brink of orgasm and seemed abruptly humiliated in front of the crowd. "Look to the family room, everyone."

A few boys there, the wealthiest of the lot, seemed charmed by something so quaint as a 'family room.' That amusement died when they opened the doors and saw what Blaine clearly meant: a bed had been set up inside it. There was plenty of room around it to watch.

"He's a virgin," Blaine cheerfully added.

"No," Kurt whispered too quietly for anyone but Blaine to hear. " _Please_ no."

"Until then," Blaine said, ignoring him, "let's enjoy the party. Stay here, Jophiel. I want you to be available for people to look at."

At first he'd wanted to stay near his Angel, but eventually the desire to mingle and bask in friends' praise was too overwhelming. Unfortunately, one of his closest friends was among the least satisfying guests. "Why are you calling it 'he?'" Wes asked curiously, sipping at his drink.

Blaine frowned at having their dynamic questioned. Kurt was his to do with as he wanted. It was poor form to criticize him, even implicitly. Wes was probably just jealous. "If you call something 'it,'" Blaine replied, "there's an implication that you're dealing with an animal. I don't know about you but I prefer to avoid that during sexual congress."

"Point taken," Wes said with a smirk, but he met Blaine's eyes above the rim of his drink. He'd either have sex with an animal or owned a person; which did he truly prefer?

"They're not anything normal," Blaine said. "They're impossible to describe. They don't fit categories," he added pointedly.

"Mmm, yes. I've read about them. They are fascinating." Wes glanced over his shoulder at where Kurt stood miserably. "A party in Beijing had an owner claiming two at a time in front of his guests; I can't even imagine."

Nor could Blaine. There were fewer than five thousand Angel owners in the world and only a fortunate few dozen owned two. Even the top of the Forbes charts had discovered that money couldn't buy everything. "They are miraculous," he agreed. "Would you like to see him up close?"

"Yes, actually. Very much so." Wes said as Blaine led him to the stairs. Then, brow furrowed in pure curiosity, he lifted a knife he'd secreted and sliced Kurt across the arm. It cut deeply, maybe to the bone, and Kurt screamed from the pain.

Everyone froze. He hadn't just touched an Angel without its owner's permission, he'd _hurt_ an Angel. It was an unspeakable insult.

"What are you doing?" Blaine demanded, pulling him away so harshly that the knife went flying to the ground.

"Look at it," Wes marvelled. "Look at its blood."

Liquid gold spilled between Kurt's fingers where he clutched at his arm. It glowed with its own light and vanished before it could splatter on the carpeted staircase.

"They heal," Wes continued, amazed. "I heard that. I had to see. You can do anything to them and they heal from it."

"Get out," Blaine seethed.

"I didn't hurt it," Wes protested in those same damnably logical tones. "It's healing right now, look," he continued and yanked Kurt's hand free of his arm. The golden slash across his bicep was still brutal, but smaller than it had been. Kurt cried out again as his wound was jostled.

"Get out," Blaine said, "or I will press charges for assaulting my Angel."

Wes' whole demeanor chilled. It didn't matter that Kurt's arm was healing as they watched; with that many witnesses he would be convicted. It was a ten-year minimum sentence. They'd even jailed two Senators for it. "You hurt it all the time," he pointed out before he turned and walked to the door. The rest of the party followed.

"Come on," Blaine said once they were alone and lead him to Blaine's bedroom. Kurt looked exhausted from that sudden pain, even though he was once again whole. "Your blood glows."

"Yes," Kurt said.

"I didn't know that."

"Do you want to see?" Kurt asked tiredly and held out one arm. It was facing upward, like he expected Blaine to slit the arteries at his wrist. "He's right. I heal. We tried to cut off my wings when they appeared but it didn't work; I always heal." Head bowing so deeply that Blaine could no longer see his eyes, Kurt presented his wrist more grandly to Blaine and waited for him to slice it open. He seemed drained after waiting for the bed in the family room.

"We?" Blaine repeated.

"My father," Kurt said. His voice lost ten years on the word. "He tried to save me."

"He shouldn't have damaged you," Blaine said for any response to make. "He could go to prison. Uncollared Angels are the cartel's property. It's the law."

Kurt stared at him with open disbelief; it peaked on 'damaged.' That remark about his father apparently put fire back into his belly. "Do it," he dared Blaine almost angrily. "Now that I'm your _property_ , do it."

He'd protest that he wasn't like that, but Blaine realized it was a lie. He'd been hurting Kurt all this time with the knowledge that nothing he did was permanent. Wes' wound was just as temporary; there wasn't a single spot of blood on the carpet. For all intents and purposes, they were identical.

When Blaine said nothing, Kurt's lip curled into a sneer. "Are those your school friends?" he continued. "The ones you talk about at that perfect place where everyone is equal? What a collection of spoiled children. _Spoiled_ ," he repeated more pointedly. "Like you're rotten inside."

This was insane. It wasn't anything _any_ other owner in the world wouldn't have done, and Blaine said as much.

"What a high standard you've set for yourself," Kurt said thinly, and then waved his wrist again. "Well?" he said almost impatiently. "Want me to do it, then?" He looked around, like he was hunting for a knife or razor, and Blaine kissed him to shut him up.

"Take off your clothes," he said, because he knew what to do next with _that._ He didn't know how to explain that no, he didn't want to see his Angel's blood and marvel as it glowed, nor that the sight of Wes slicing Kurt open like some sort of experiment had made Blaine feel more than just an owner's outrage.

It hadn't been _right_ to do that.

Kurt's mouth twisted as he undressed. It wasn't a pretty expression and was filled with judgment. He was unimpressed with Blaine, that much was clear.

It hadn't even been right for his father to try to force food into Kurt's mouth.

Suddenly Blaine felt almost angry at how confusing everything had become. He was supposed to have wholly owned him that night. With a throatiness to his voice he ordered Kurt to smile. "Smile, Jophiel," he repeated as he wrapped his hand around the Angel's cock. It was soft, still, like a personal affront to him.

His other hand reached around Kurt's torso and drew down one wing's curve with his fingernails. "Smile," Blaine ordered again as he scratched and clutched at the wings. Soon Kurt was hard in his hand, hot and needy and begging him for more.

Blaine circled his thumb around the head and then pulled free to lick off the bead of precome he'd claimed. It tasted sweet as honey. He could drop to his knees like he wanted and hear Kurt gasp his name while he came. Owners probably weren't supposed to pleasure their Angels like that. Owners should dominate. Owners should know what they were doing and never feel confused over the dynamic between them.

Owners should feel angry if their property became damaged, but they shouldn't feel that doing so had been _wrong._ Owners should feel sad at the expressions of some suffering child on the news, not those on the face of their prize.

He wanted to drop to his knees. Instead he ordered Kurt to fall to his, having to use the collar before he obeyed, and only then did Blaine follow him down. He didn't bother shucking his pants, only pushing them far enough to free his erection. When Blaine leaned against Kurt the buckle on his belt hit flesh.

Kurt opened to him, hot and tight around Blaine's length. Blaine had gone in dry and fast, clearly hurting Kurt, and he bled from it. Gold glowed where their bodies met. He hadn't meant to do that, he wasn't like Wes, Blaine told himself furiously, but was too lost in Kurt to do anything but continue.

Little gasps sounded under Blaine with each stroke. Blaine grabbed the base of his wings, squeezing hard enough to hurt, and Kurt's head lolled back with a mingled cry of pain and fear and pleasure. Forcing the wings open a bit, Blaine grunted when he felt a few long flight feathers curl around to brush against the stretch of skin between shirt and belt. It tickled. He felt Kurt began to tremble and knew he'd orgasm soon, but Blaine refused to allow it. He was in control. That was the dynamic between owner and property. He always had his controller handy, always, and he scooped it off the ground and pushed hard on one of the buttons there.

Kurt's cries lost any pleasure as his collar flared. Pain, mild as it was, couldn't be ignored when it swarmed and rested in his genitals. He started shaking under Blaine, but Blaine only tightened his grip on Kurt's wings and pulled back like he was reining in a horse. His thrusts grew harder and longer. The sound of his flesh meeting Kurt's overlaid the Angel's cries.

When he felt himself peaking, Blaine allowed himself a few last hard thrusts before he pulled free and came across Kurt's back. Most of the semen landed in stripes on skin but some had splattered into feathers. It would dry there and be impossible to remove, not without yanking the feathers free entirely. Kurt would flinch when he did and yet he would take it because Blaine was his owner. That was how the world worked.

"Finish yourself, Jophiel," Blaine said when he stepped back and turned off the collar. Kurt collapsed to the floor on shaky arms. He'd lost much of his erection during the punishment; some would pay handsomely for what Blaine had just dealt, but Kurt hated it. "I want to watch," he added and stroked Kurt's wings until he was hard again, obviously against his will.

Kurt didn't have any choice about what his body did, whether it was arousal or those tears streaming down his face.

This was simple, Blaine told himself. It was the simplest thing in the world, an owner and an Angel. The owner could do anything he wanted and so long as he remembered that he didn't need to be confused. "Do it," Blaine said again as Kurt wrapped pale fingers around the deep pink flush of his cock and mechanically followed orders. He was using the arm that had been cut to the bone.

Blaine walked out of the room before he was done. He didn't come back in until late, when he thought Kurt would be asleep. Instead he was crying again, sounding like his heart had been broken and the pieces ground to dust.

Blaine's heart wanted to break, too. He could picture Wes driving a knife into him like cutting through a porterhouse. He could picture that infinite sadness in Kurt's eyes. He wondered what could possibly be in his head and heart to drive such things. He wondered how deeply an Angel could even feel.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said the next morning before he left for his summer study work at the far end of the house. Kurt was curled up on his small bed along the wall. It was elaborate but low to the ground, like it was designed for some spoiled Great Dane. It was a pet's bed. "I shouldn't have done that."

The pain of the previous night was behind a mask, and Kurt watched him go with an unreadable expression.

  


* * *

 

"What was it like when they collared you?" Blaine asked over breakfast a few days later.

Kurt looked at him warily, like he wasn't sure how honest he was supposed to be.

It had taken him those days to stop crying. It wasn't constant. It would spring up randomly when he saw Blaine standing there, like he was startled by his presence. Blaine hated feeling like a threat; he hadn't done anything any owner wouldn't do. But it still seemed imperative to talk to his Angel and get him comfortable again. "I want to know everything. I don't know how it works."

When Kurt stayed quiet Blaine said encouragingly, "I really do want to know. I find this fascinating."

"I was hiding," Kurt finally said. "We knew it was the only way. We weren't letting anyone come over. My dad has a fiancée but he kept her away, I didn't talk to my friends... but it didn't work. In the middle of the night there were dogs. I heard my dad shouting but they knocked him down. I was hiding in the basement but they came to the door." His hand stole up to his neck and rested there; Blaine knew what had happened next.

"I didn't know why they would ever come to Lima," Kurt finally continued. "Why would you ever go there? But we apparently smell... memorable to animals," Kurt said, and tapped more pointedly against the collar. "This tones it down, but otherwise a dog can catch it from a hundred miles away. I heard all this after, in recovery. It takes a while for your body to get used to the collar. I couldn't move much."

"How did you feel about everything?" Blaine asked. Kurt _did_ feel things, it was more clear with each day that passed. He clearly missed that life from which he'd been lifted. And he'd hated losing his virginity like that more than anything.

It took Kurt a while to answer. "Seeing these wings come in was like seeing a brain tumor on a MRI. I knew my life was over; it was just a matter of when. I went through all the stages: anger, grief, bargaining, everything. And when I was collared I did it again. But I'd mostly given up hope by that point; there wasn't as far to fall. I cried more at home than I did in the cell."

"Well," Blaine said thoughtfully, looking for any way to cheer him up. "At least you got a good owner, right?" He _was_ a good owner, he told himself. Some owners would pose their Angels naked for parties that went on for days at a time and punish them when they moved. By the end of the affair, when they couldn't help but collapse from sleep deprivation, the punishment itself became a party game. He would never do that; it sounded horrifying and barbaric. He was a very good owner.

"Could be worse," Kurt shrugged. It wasn't a very convincing answer. He hadn't met Blaine's eyes ever since Blaine had taken him, not wholly. Dull acceptance had set in over the loss of his virginity to his owner. Blaine wondered if he had also gone through denial, anger, and all that in the night that followed.

"I want you in me, Jophiel," Blaine said casually that afternoon, though his heart raced. It was one thing to pin down an Angel, but another thing entirely to have his own being penetrated by such a creature. He'd wanted it from the first day, just like he'd wanted every possible thing in the world, but had to work up the courage for the request.

For some reason he caught Kurt's wrist when he began pulling at the snaps around his back. "Do you want to?" Blaine asked in a voice that begged for honesty.

He got it. "No," Kurt said simply. He didn't want to be in Blaine, he didn't want Blaine in him, he didn't even want to touch him. He would but he didn't want to.

"I'm going to catch up on my reading," Blaine announced like it was what he'd always wanted to really do in the first place. The rejection hurt. It should have angered him, the defiance... but it simply _hurt_. Wasn't he a good owner? He wasn't rotten inside.

"I still want you," Blaine said the next day. He watched Kurt's hand go still in his mouth. He'd been sucking honey off his finger. It probably wasn't yet gone but he clearly didn't want to hollow his cheeks again. "Do you want to?"

Like he knew Blaine would keep asking, Kurt deliberately sucked his finger clean, licked his lips when he pulled it free, and then almost spat, "Fine."

That hurt even more than the rejection. He wanted Kurt to want him, Blaine realized. Not simply to comply, but to want him, to beam with honest joy when he walked in the room, and to never need a shock from his collar again because he wouldn't _want_ to anger Blaine.

Blaine needed this beautiful thing to forgive him, need him, and love him. He should love the boy who'd been so furious at Wes cutting him open. For something so perfect to hate him... it made him feel dirty. He looked at Kurt's expression and sought any tender feelings, even a sliver.

None existed.

"Are you riding me or am I fucking you?" Kurt asked bluntly. He wanted it over with.

"On our knees on the bed," Blaine said. He realized exactly what he wanted and added through a suddenly dry voice, "Cover us with your wings, so that's all I see."

They'd be together forever, Blaine thought as he felt Kurt's finger slip into him and begin to work with agonizing slowness. He would usually take his Angel, but in the years to come they would have no need to deny themselves any possible pleasures. This would be the start. Surely Kurt would enjoy the change and he would appreciate how kind Blaine was being to him.

Those eyes like a lake in spring would look at him again.

"Do you like this idea, Kurt?" Blaine asked, sighing in pleasure as nimble fingers stretched him.

"Of course I do," Kurt said mechanically as he worked. "I like whatever you suggest."

It was too much.

Blaine, betrayed, turned over to face him. His dying erection was presented to Kurt like evidence of a crime. "Would you like it better if I were in you next time?" he asked shortly.

"Of course I would," Kurt said. "I like whatever you suggest."

Stubborn as a mule. "Then smile for me," Blaine said. Even doing so, Kurt looked as distant as ever. Blaine stood and walked away to gather his clothes. Nearly anyone on the planet would literally kill to be in his position; why did he feel like he was starving in a land of plenty?

Kurt looked relieved when Blaine glanced back. He wouldn’t have to touch or be touched.

"Here," Blaine said the next day. A jar of honey was set before Kurt. That half-smile appeared: he loved the stuff but he clearly hated the show Blaine made him put on.

Next, Blaine set down a teaspoon.

Kurt looked at it, the jar, and then Blaine with confusion. He really _looked_ at Blaine.

"I know you don't eat much," Blaine said, gesturing at the table. "So just have as much as you like, I know you'll stop before you'd make yourself sick." At the lingering confusion he shrugged, "It seems like it would be easier to use a spoon."

The realization clearly sunk in: Kurt was being given something he enjoyed without any sexual payment in return, even oblique. It seemed to take him a few moments to comprehend that and he really, truly smiled when he did. He didn't smile at Blaine, but he did smile.

It was over such a simple, tiny thing but Blaine's heart leapt regardless. He resolved to see that smile again.

  


* * *

 

"Would you like to read something?" Blaine asked Kurt. He was taken by surprise when Kurt took at least a half-dozen titles off the shelves in that first round.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked days later. They went to the far side of his family's property, over a large lawn and under trees. Kurt smiled with each small breath of wind that arose and made his wings ripple delicately like a field of wheat. It was that same _real_ smile he'd used for the books and honey. He never smiled like that for sex, and never had at Blaine.

If he were kinder to him, Blaine thought, then eventually Kurt would meet his eyes when smiling. So much would be within it: forgiveness for hurting him in their first union, recognition of what a good person Blaine was, love. If this perfect creature loved him then no one could ever say that he was rotten inside.

"What did you want your first time to be like?" Blaine thought to ask one day. Kurt was his fantasy, but perhaps he could give him one of his in return.

Kurt looked at him sidelong. He only seemed to have three modes when interacting with Blaine: sadness, disgust, and then the pleasure that he couldn't control. "You're seriously asking me this?"

"Yes," Blaine said hopefully. Maybe he'd pictured a certain song playing? He could certainly do that.

"With someone I loved," Kurt fired back. "Someone I _chose_. Someone kind."

"But I am kind," Blaine said, hurt. Kurt might not love him yet but if nothing else, he was kind.

Kurt turned around and walked away without another word. After coming out the far side of his sadness he'd been more willing to misbehave ever since the night of the party: angrier and less worried about punishment. Blaine should have used his collar, but instead he simply sighed and followed.

"Is there something you'd like to do?" he asked, tagging along after. "Something I could buy for you?"

"Asking what toy your pet wants?" Kurt retorted, still walking without looking back. "Go buy me a bell in a ball, I don't care."

"What do you enjoy doing?" Blaine asked, almost frustrated. "What _did_ you do before they collared you? Did you... did you write, or play any sports, perhaps an instrument, sing, act...." His eyebrows crept upward when he processed that Kurt had flinched just a tiny bit on 'sing.' "You sang!" he said with delight. Of course his choirboy would sing, it made perfect sense. "I sing as well, if you can believe it." How fortuitous. What a perfect bonding mechanism. "Would you like to sing for me?"

"No," Kurt said bluntly.

"Why ever not?"

Kurt shrugged, flicked one finger against a wing, and clearly lied, "Don't want to cling too fiercely to the role, I suppose. I'm already feathered and in a cage."

"But doesn't singing make you happy? I know it can cheer me up immensely; before I transferred to Dalton it would sometimes be the only refuge I had to—"

"Don't you ever _stop?_ " Kurt snapped. "Fine. I don't want to give that to you."

"But don't you miss singing?" Blaine prompted. "Have you done it at all since they collared you? Did you do it when you were hiding? I can't imagine—"

Interrupting Blaine like he was trying to silence him, Kurt began singing a slow, mournful song. On the first wavering note, Blaine fell in love.

His voice was clear and crystalline. It should have been beautiful, and Blaine supposed it was, but it was too sad to be anything but heartbreaking. Halfway through he choked on a note and huddled around the sound, not bothering to finish.

"What was that?" Blaine finally asked through a dry throat when Kurt seemed ready to speak. "It sounded familiar."

"A Disney song," Kurt mumbled against his knees.

"That was a _Disney_ song?" Blaine asked in disbelief, risking laying one hand on Kurt's shoulder. "How could they make a song that sad?"

Kurt still didn't look up. "Baby Mine. My mother would sing it when I was little. Everything would feel perfect when she did." He hunched more, and although Blaine knew he hadn't been supposed to hear it, Kurt whispered that he wanted his dad, and he wanted his mom.

Something about the way he said that word made Blaine know that his mother hadn't been around to see him collared; it hadn't been a divorce opening his father to a fiancée. Seeing Kurt's sadness echoed in his own chest a thousand times worse, he just knew it _had_ to hurt that much more, and Blaine wanted nothing more than to see that pain ease. He wanted to hear that voice sing a happy song.

"I keep thinking of paintings," Blaine said. He ran the pad of his thumb across Kurt's cheek. "Ones from the Italian and Dutch masters. Those people were all so gentle, so perfect." His skin wiped away the tears on Kurt's. "It would have broken my heart to see them crying. I don't understand why you're so sad all the time, Jophiel," Blaine said imploringly.

"I know you don't," Kurt replied. "That's why I am."

This was so complicated.

They were awkward through the rest of the day, as they usually were by that point. Blaine considered stroking to him arousal by the next day's afternoon, and his hand occasionally brushed feathers with the hope that Kurt would seem happy over that first rush of pleasure, but he never was. Somehow he had to make him sing happy songs. Reminded of how happy Kurt had looked with the wind moving gently across him, Blaine came up with what he was sure was a brilliant idea. "Let's go to the roof," he said brightly. "Or a balcony, at least."

Kurt grudgingly followed, but he did seem to enjoy himself once they were out on a small balcony that was high enough to pick up on breezes the ground would miss. He breathed deeply of the wind rushing by and looked far off into the distance.

Blaine watched him. Kurt ignored the attention.

"Can you fly?" Blaine asked suddenly. He knew about how birds flew, how they were all muscle and hardly any weight, and how a human would logically need wings far larger than any Angel's to carry them aloft. But then, birds were everyday creatures. They had to conform to the laws of nature.

"I don't know," Kurt said.

"Do you want to try?"

Surprised at the question, Kurt didn't seem to know how to respond. Flight was something that happened for most only in dreams, and wings were a great weight rather than a freedom. If allowed to fly then he might be allowed to feel joy, and clearly that couldn't happen.

"You can say yes," Blaine said with gentle amusement.

Kurt looked at the sky, looked at him, and then, with an impish smile at the clouds, launched himself.

Blaine chuckled even as he felt awed at the impossibly beautiful sight above him. He'd told Kurt to say yes and he'd very purposefully left without a word; his Angel was a stubborn one. He rather loved him for it.

It was _beautiful_ , what he saw, and Blaine's chest ached with a strange, hollow need. He didn't know what to make of it. He knew that the sight of those wings spread as far as they could go nearly made him cry from their grandeur, and he knew that the sight of Kurt twisting in his total freedom would be with him when he was old and grey and Kurt was unchanged, but he didn't know why he felt that strongly.

He didn't know how much love he felt, Blaine admitted to himself, or what kind. It wasn't like loving a beautiful painting.

It all went suddenly wrong. Kurt screamed and clutched at his throat. His collar was firing; _why?_ Blaine took a step forward but cursed as he came to the edge of the balcony. Kurt couldn't control himself under that pain any more than Blaine could step off the roof, and like a stone he fell to the ground.

Kurt landed wrong and didn't move. Blaine couldn't hear that far up, but he was sure the sound of Kurt's neck snapping had been very loud indeed.

Too stunned to move, some distant sliver of Blaine's mind hoped that everything in the past few minutes would reveal itself as a dream. He couldn't have watched his Angel die in front of him, he just _couldn't._ It was impossible. He was the one who'd suggested he try flying. It was Blaine's fault. In his endless artwork metaphors, it was like he'd set fire to the Louvre.

Kurt looked very small three stories down, crumpled like that, but Blaine could just make out his half-slit eyes glowing gold. They were tiny points of light, so small he might have imagined then, but then Kurt was sitting up, shaking his head, and visibly trying to collect himself from the shock of his fall.

Of his death.

He couldn't even kill himself, Blaine realized with shock, not even if he'd wanted to.

Glancing at the controller, Blaine's heart seemed to run cold with icewater. A small display in the corner, unremarkable next to the larger numbers, informed him that the maximum range was currently set to two hundred feet. That was as far as Kurt could go, then, before he would be automatically incapacitated. Almost instinctively Blaine moved to increase the number, but froze. How far would be enough and how far would be too far? If Kurt got too distant he might find a way to escape.

Blaine didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to feel. And when Kurt returned to the balcony, moving through the air almost like he was limping and folding in on himself when he landed, he had no idea what to say.

"Can I lie down for a while?" Kurt finally asked. His voice was shaking, as were the feathers shielding much of his body. His wings cocooned him.

"Of course," Blaine said and, out of habit, stroked down one of those strong wings to comfort him. But then Kurt shuddered with pleasure, clearly hating it, and Blaine's hand fell away. "No," he stammered when Kurt tiredly said that of course they could do _things_ before he was allowed to sleep. After his death he didn't have the energy to fight. "No, I didn't mean anything by it. Go sleep."

He followed Kurt to his room and watched him consider the two beds. The lower one was only his, but it was the sleeping place of an animal. The king-sized mattress was for a human, but also a place for every sexual fantasy Blaine had. "Come on," Blaine finally said when Kurt didn't move even with his obvious exhaustion. "This one."

When they reached a guest bedroom, Kurt turned to him with confusion in his eyes. "Rest up," Blaine said. "I can't even imagine how traumatic that was for you. It's literally an experience outside human comprehension."

"I suppose so," Kurt agreed, and Blaine felt oddly bad when he realized he'd just told Kurt yet again that he wasn't human. Blaine closed the door when he stepped out of it, giving Kurt his privacy, and then placed both hands on the frame and slumped into them.

Questions formed in his mind. He didn't like their implications.

  


* * *

 

"You were a virgin," Blaine said one evening.

"I was," Kurt quietly agreed.

'He' agreed, not 'it.' An innocent boy had been captured, tortured, and then his first sexual experiences had been a humiliating series of rapes. Some were for public enjoyment. Blaine had done that.

For a while he'd been able to avoid those descriptions of the events. But the image of Kurt dying kept echoing through his mind. Each time it echoed Blaine found himself staring at the numbers on a screen, deciding that he couldn't allow Kurt any more freedom lest he escape, and putting it away. Then he came back to himself and felt mired in guilt.

Years ago a loving mother had sung a lullaby to her son. Now that son was chained and suffering.

She probably hadn't pictured him in tears over the idea that his first time would be on a bed with a crowd of people watching. She would have hoped that it would be kind. Even alone in Blaine's room, it had not been kind.

Blaine pictured explaining to that woman that her son was just his property to do with as he liked. It didn't work. And the more times he tried his entire world view began to waver around him.

This was not an 'it,' this was not property. This was the son who'd fallen asleep to a Disney lullaby. He was a person.

And Blaine raped him.

Blaine looked quietly at the contract his parents had provided to him. It was triple-checked for any possible legal hitches. He was a minor, but it was ironclad regardless: he had complete ownership of his Angel and no one could possibly steal that ownership from him. Weeks earlier, that seemed like a gift. Now, Blaine wondered why his parents had been so excited to turn their son into a rapist.

How many innocents were suffering that same fate around the world at that very moment? Did any of those owners care, or had their 'properly trained' Angels had every glimmer of humanity beaten out of them before they were sold? Was there anything left to remind the owners of what they were actually doing?

"Could you please look at me?" Blaine asked.

Kurt straightened but didn't turn; he seemed confused that Blaine had used such polite language.

"Kurt," Blaine said even more gently, "could you please look at me?"

Kurt's eyes were wide when they met Blaine's. "You used my name."

"What was your last name, again?"

"Hummel. Kurt Hummel."

A full name that had been on a birth certificate, school registrations, a driver's license. A full name for a life beyond this.

He was a person. Blaine could have grown those wings and been hunted with dogs, and he might have ended up in one of those ten-thousand square foot mansions being tortured and raped for a party game. He could have hated _singing_ because it was giving something to the person hurting him. He would have been collared, imprisoned, betrayed by a body that loved what his mind and heart hated...

And he wouldn't even have enough control left in his life to end it.

It seemed like the worst violation of all. Blaine realized his eyes were teary and had to wipe at them. He couldn't even kill himself.

He couldn't even kill himself.

He'd thought all his life that he was a good person. Everything he'd ever heard said that an Angel was something to show off like his Lexus. Was this some intricate game of Let's Pretend that the entire world engaged in to soothe its guilty conscience? How could he possibly pretend after hearing that lullaby and seeing that death? Blaine didn't think he wanted to, even if he could.

"You're just looking at me," Kurt said nervously. "Am I supposed to be... posing or something?"

"No. No, Kurt. Kurt Hummel. If you're hungry you can eat. Tired, sleep. Just... just do what you want."

He could do whatever he wanted within two hundred feet of his rapist.

Kurt eventually fell asleep, but it was nearly dawn before Blaine admitted that he wouldn't be able to rest with all those questions in his mind. He had to answer them as best he could. Blaine gently nudged Kurt's shoulder, waking him. "Kurt," he whispered. "Come on. Be quiet, we're getting in my car."

"We can't leave," he said in confusion. "The security system goes off if the garage...." When Blaine opened the window he trailed off and smiled a bit with the realization. "I don't know if I can carry you," Kurt said reasonably.

"We're just gliding. Come on. I parked outside, conveniently."

Locking his arms around Kurt's neck, Blaine felt a surge of fear when they leaned over the windowsill. His room was high, on the third floor of a house with a tall foundation, and Kurt could drop him if he wanted. If there were ever a chance to be free it would be that moment. He could kill Blaine, take the chance that he could reset the controller with his own thumbprint, and try to find some hope at freedom far from the rest of the world. It wouldn't work—an Angel couldn't own his collar, it was the most basic safeguard imaginable—but Kurt wouldn't know that until Blaine was a mess on the driveway.

Instead Kurt whispered not to worry, and in one silent arc they were on the ground.

"Get in the back seat," Blaine told him. Shaded windows hid the interior of the car from those outside; Blaine was glad his parents had thought to buy that luxury. He'd need it.

Once Kurt had followed orders, awkwardly edging through the door until he could lay mostly flat in the space there, Blaine settled behind the wheel and started the engine. His parents slept soundly, only listening for the sound of the alarm. They'd be an hour away before they were missed. And no one would ever think to look where they were headed.

"I have a business proposition for you," Blaine said as he climbed out of his car at the end of that long drive. The man there looked up. He was tired, drawn, and seemed to be moving only because he was in the habit of doing so.

"I can do basic service on a Lexus," he said, "but luxury cars aren't my thing. I can promise you a fair price, but not—"

Blaine held up his hand. "Mr. Hummel, I presume?" He nodded, glancing past Blaine to where the sign proclaimed as much. It was an obvious assumption for anyone to make. "I have something you might be interested in buying."

"I don't need new shop equipment, I have an office supplier, I don't need whatever you're selling," he said flatly. "If you're here about your car then I can help you. For anything else... there's not a damn thing I can help you or anyone with."

Blaine smiled, not taking his offense personally... although, he realized, perhaps he should be. He knew what had broken this man, and he was the one who'd benefited from it. "Mr. Hummel, my offer is about this," he said, revealing the controller in one hand.

He froze like he was in a dream and afraid to wake up. "What is that?" he asked, though everyone knew. A controller and collar were the biggest signs of wealth in the world and their imagery filtered well through society.

"It's attached to your son," Blaine said simply, "and for you, the price is one dollar."

His mouth worked wordlessly, and he began to look between Blaine and the car with dark windows. Tears beaded. "Kurt?" he finally asked, voice wavering.

"Do we have a deal?" Blaine asked, readying the system to accept a new owner.

Mr. Hummel dug through his pockets frantically. Change flew out of them, landing on the ground, and he looked ready to pass out. "I don't... I mean, I work in this outfit, I keep my wallet in a locker, I'll go get it, please don't leave—"

Bending over, Blaine picked up one of those coins off the stained concrete. "You drive a hard bargain, but five cents is just fine," he said, and passed him the unit. "Put your thumb on the screen there." And with that, Kurt was home. "He's in the back seat," Blaine said, stepping out of the way.

It was a prudent decision; the man was like a runaway train as he barrelled toward Blaine's car. "Kurt!" he yelled, and Blaine could just hear Kurt stirring from the sleep into which he'd fallen.

"What? Blaine, where are... Dad? _Dad?!_ "

"Oh my God," Mr. Hummel wept, clutching his son close.

Blaine stepped politely back and gave them their privacy, as much as he could offer, and looked around the space. It was entirely unlike the world he knew. It was comfortable, though, and clearly good. "I have the paperwork here," he eventually added when father and son had made it through the most emotional moments of their reunion. "The controller and collar is the biggest sign, but just in case anyone tries to say this isn't a legitimate purchase...."

Angels were rare and Angels were valuable. Anyone who tried to steal one away from its rightful owner might not ever see daylight again; the severity was a side effect of those laws being created by people willing to pay for them. They'd always been used to protect the property of someone parading their Angel down Rodeo Drive, where they were just another luxurious accessory. Never before had it been used to protect someone in an unremarkable home in an unremarkable town, but the law was absolute.

Even if that rightful owner had only paid five cents.

"I wish I could just free you," Blaine said with genuine regret when Kurt had edged free of his car and was standing with his father's arms around him. "But...."

"I'd get collared again," Kurt said. He knew. There was no getting around it: so long as that blood flowed through his veins, he couldn't be free. He could be with someone who'd give him every freedom he could, though, and that was the best the world would allow. "Why are you doing this?" he finally asked.

"I didn't have a choice," Blaine shrugged. He didn't have a collar stealing his freedom, but there had been no question about what his own heart would allow. Kurt couldn't even kill himself. "Here," Blaine said, gesturing to the screen of the controller and hoping he'd be allowed to touch what had once been his. "This number," he explained, gesturing to one corner, "tells how far Kurt can get from you before the collar fires."

Mr. Hummel immediately slid that number as far to the right as it would go, not even thinking about it, but looked disheartened when it wouldn't increase any further. "Five thousand two hundred and eighty," he murmured. "One mile. Won't let me move it up any more."

"It's okay, Dad," Kurt said softly. "It's better than I could hope for, really. I don't know that I'd want to get too far on the ground, it might just be setting me up for another capture until you got the law involved... but it's high."

His father's face moved from incomprehension to wonder when he realized what Kurt meant, but even that fell away into sorrow that he was clearly used to feeling. "This world should be better to you," he said, and hugged his son when he could only shrug and say he'd live in it as best he could.

"Do people... know?" Kurt asked into his shoulder.

"Yeah," he admitted. "They all know why you were gone. They won't believe it when they hear you're home. They won't care, Kurt. They'll still see _you_."

As Kurt nodded against him, Blaine realized the meaning of that and was stunned by it. 'People.' Friends, perhaps more family. People who knew Kurt and cared for him. He hadn't once asked about Kurt's life before he was captured, nothing past interests to distract him; the scant information that had lead Blaine to Lima had been offered.

Few people on earth would do what Blaine had, and for that allowed himself a small surge of pride. But for all that he'd called an Angel a person and given him back his identity, he didn't even know what Kurt's father's name was. He hadn't cared.

He could feel Kurt's eyes on him, questioning as to what their dynamic would be in the next few moments. Were they saying a temporary or permanent farewell? Would Blaine try to know him in his real life, not the one forced on him in that house? Kurt was emotional and vulnerable and he owed Blaine his freedom. Giving an Angel back to his family would be incomprehensible to most of the world. Kurt never would have hoped for it. If Blaine asked if he could see him again, despite their history, Kurt would almost certainly say yes.

He hadn't bothered to ask his father's name.

"Enjoy your life, Kurt," Blaine said, kissing the tips of his fingers and then gesturing toward the boy. "Enjoy your family and friends, and find happiness." With that he turned around before either Hummel could offer a reply, walked to his car, and climbed in.

When he drove away, Blaine didn't look back.


End file.
